


the color we lost (and need remember)

by ofwickedlight



Series: Tumblr ASOIAF Oneshots [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Blood, Canon - Book, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Tywin Lannister, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Pre-Canon, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 10:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22848607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofwickedlight/pseuds/ofwickedlight
Summary: Lannister blood was not to be wasted, but she had forgotten that. And in his weakness, so had he.
Relationships: Joanna Lannister/Tywin Lannister
Series: Tumblr ASOIAF Oneshots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642528
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	the color we lost (and need remember)

* * *

The red should please him, he knew. It was crimson, _Lannister_ crimson, sharp as the steel his House wielded, high as their glory, swelling like the fear he’d wrought into the hearts of sheep—

—but sanguine, and sickly, and swarming. Copper, not steel. Too metallic to breathe. Too defiant. Invaded his senses, _dared_ exist without his word. He had commanded blood the night he ended the Tarbecks, and so it had rose, drenched, drowned, bowed beneath his shadow, and he’d heard the screams, saw eyes staring into nothing, red rivulets weeping over flesh, and smiled, because he had summoned it.

He had not summoned it now.

Tywin stared at her. Creamy skin taken by red and grey, curled mane dull where it should be golden. And somewhere, out of his sight, the misshapen, twisted, hideous thing that had murdered her. It had the gall to breathe, to emerge with her blood on its unworthy flesh, the blood of the womb it had ripped through. And worst of all, the sound, when it realized it had made it into the world, succeeded in its atrocity, its sin. A _Lannister’s_ _roar_ , a mocking cry, a mimicking it would not live to remember, but Tywin would. And he _would_ remember it; it was the debt he’d owed, to her. To know her murderer. To think of the lion’s cry it had dared imitate while it took its last breath. Later on, Tywin planned to watch the thing that played at being a boy, see its chest rise and fall, watch it struggle in its own weakness, and die. And it would happen—if it called itself a Lannister, came from one, roared like one, then it had its own debt to pay.

But for now.

For now. Her.

She was too still, he observed, distantly. There was always a motion to her, even when she was not moving. A glow. A cunning brightness. White, and gold, and green, with crimson she had _chosen_ , because it was his colors, and hers—silken, and soft, as red as her full, smirking lips.

The crimson on her skin now was crusted, not silk. Drying into brown. Rotting, like she would, soon.

There was an ache in Tywin’s fingers, a faint trickle down his wrist. His eyes left her then—just a moment, only half a breath, _only_ —and saw the source. A clenched fist, so tight it trembled, and somewhere far away, there was a sting. His nails. He’d been digging his nails into his palm. Redness birthed from the cut crescents in his flesh, streaming in crimson tears.

She would have laughed at the sight of it, he knew. She so enjoyed whenever they matched. _A bleeding pair of spouses,_ she’d say. _Our rivals will never see it coming._ Or perhaps a jest about Lannisters reinventing fashion, or the two of them mirroring lions after a particularly bloody hunt. Whatever she would say would have been clever enough. She had been amusing. She had been the only one in the world who was. He had not minded her jests, nor the little smirk that would take her full lips as she’d say them, or the twinkle that took her eye whenever she’d see that he had not minded them. That sense of victory, when she brought the smallest twitch to his lips, or the faintest snort. Years and years of it, of _them,_ and it never ceased to please her. Never ceased to brighten those green eyes that so mirrored his.

Those eyes stared into nothing, now. Emeralds, tarnished.

Tywin unclenched his weeping fist. Red. Sanguine, sickly, swarming. The cuts would scar, he knew. Four crescents faded enough for only him to see. To remember.

 _Good,_ she would scold him. _Lannister blood is too valuable to be wasted. A lesson learned._

Yes.

He’d forgotten.

And so had she.


End file.
